A Phenomenological Perspective: The Crisis of European Sci-Ences (Husserl, 1959)

CHAPTER TWO
A Phenomenological Perspective

That which had previously been formulated as the problem of the sense of Being
has now been reformulated as the pure and simple problem of sense, [...] the word
Being has quietly been set aside. Now the question is: where does sense arise
from?
Gian-Carlo Rota
Rotas philosophical refection follows the path cleared by Husserl and, in par-
ticular, crisscrosses with the problems that emerge in The Crisis of European Sci-
ences (Husserl, 1959);

namely, that since philosophy originates in a refection on the
problem of sense (Rota, 1991a, pp. 5256 and 1993a, p. 129),
1
the current crisis of
contemporary culture, at once philosophical and scientifc, arises precisely from the
forgetting of this great problem.
Rota intends to respond to the challenge of a science that excludes in prin-
ciple the questions of sense (Husserl, 1959, p. 6)
2
by shouldering, himself, one of
the tasks of Husserlian phenomenology; i.e., by developing a philosophy that wants
to be scientifc without accepting an objectifed [...] and mechanical vision of
science (Franzini, 1991, p. 8). Rota devoted most of his fundamental opus, The
End of Objectivity (Rota, 1991a) precisely to a refection on the problem of sense and
of its forgetting; for this reason it behooves us to begin this chapter with a prelimi-
nary refection on the title of this book which is, in many respects, programmatic.
2.1 The Problem of Sense and the End of Objectivity
The English term objectivity possesses the dual meaning of impartiality and of
having the reality of an object not dependent on the mind. Rota uses the term in
both senses to refer to that ensemble of philosophic doctrines that Husserl brings
together under the term objectivism (see Husserl, 1956, and 1959, pp. 6870).
1
Rota chooses to use the word sense rather than meaning, saying we will not use the word
meaning because it is tainted with special uses (1991a, p. 51).
2
Husserl is concerned not only with the sciences of nature but also with those of the spirit that
suffer the same destiny, characterized by objectivism (ibid., pp. 67).
2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC
Chapter Two
28
It is diffcult to understand fully the meaning of this term if we follow Rotas
text alone which, poor in defnitions by methodological premise,
3
limits itself to
defning objectivism (or objectivity) as the understanding of our world as made up
of things (Rota, 1991a, p. 124). This indication further complicates the situation
since the word thing (cosa) is seen in common language as the most general of all
terms, and thus understanding what [thing] is a thing (che cosa sia una cosa) throws
us immediately in a sort of logical circle expressed also by a linguistic contortion.
In this case, to clarify Rotas defnition I shall not follow his examples in The End of
Objectivity that, to win over the MIT public, lead toward a sort of identifcation of
objectivism with materialism and its mechanistic variant;
4
but neither shall I follow
the overly facile Heideggerian assonances. Rather, I believe it is important to return
to the texts of Husserl himself.
Husserl uses the term thing with different meanings; thus we have to select
which is the one that Rota considered to be the constitutive element of the objec-
tivistic world. We need to recall here that Rota used the term thing in the meaning
given by common sense imbued with scientism, maintaining that the physical and
factual world seemed to be the ultimatecompletely independent and irreducible,
beyond which there is no explanation (Rota, 1991a, p. 2; emphasis added). This
thing is characterized above all by its independence, and to better understand its
meaning we must make reference to that which Husserl defnes as the physicalistic
thing.
5
Objectivism is a philosophical strategy that seeks to account for the whole of
reality and of experience through a sort of rational reconstruction that sets out
from physicalistic nature, from the thing itself in itself.
6
But let us not forget that
the things of objective science are not [...] things [...] like stones, houses or trees.
[...] they are representations-in-themselves [...] ideal unities of signifcation, whose
logical ideality is determined by their telos, truth in itself (Husserl, 1959, p. 130).
As Husserl further explained, What characterizes objectivism is that it moves upon
the ground of the world which is pregiven, taken for granted through experience,
seeks the objective truth [...] what it is in itself (Husserl, 1959, p. 68). Albeit from
another cultural context, the words of Thomas Nagel (b. 1937) help to make it clear
(in extreme synthesis) that physical things have been made possible by a
method of investigating the observable physical world not with respect to the way
it appears to our senses [...] but rather as an objective realm existing independently
of our minds. [...] In order to do this, it was necessary to fnd ways of detecting
and measuring and describing features of the physical world which were not in-
extricably tied to the ways things looked, sounded and felt to us. [...] The whole
3
In this regard see Section 1.2.
4
We recall the classical criticism of mechanism in Mach (1883).
5
Husserl (1952a), p. 89.
6
Loc. cit.; emphasis in original.
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29
idea of objective physical reality depends on excluding the subjective appearances
from the external world and consigning them to the mind instead. (Nagel, 1994,
pp. 6566)
In essence, we can say that the scientifc object is determined as the isolation of a
particular layer of reality. This operation determines the epistemological priority
of the quantitative dimension to which the qualitative dimension is also reduced. A
clock, a stone, or the light of a sunset are not scientifc objects as such, but have to
become so through the elimination of all the subjective components that color
(taint) them.
A great deal has been said about the genesis of this objectivist strategy, with
emphasis on the role played by the refections of Galileo and Descartes.
7
These
philosophers acted within the common framework of a project of scientifc cre-
ation, but there are nonetheless fundamental differences between them. For ex-
ample, Francesca Bonicalzi emphasized one distinction based on the examination
of the expression removal of the sentient animal.
8
In Galileo this is part of an
epistemological strategy that founds scientifc discourse on the neutralization of
the sense organs in order to make a distinction between constitutive aspects of
the structure of bodiesshape, size, spatial and temporal determination, motion,
resistanceand their mechanical action on the organs of sensetastes, odors, col-
ors, soundsthat have existence only in the body of the animated subject.
9
The case is signifcantly different in Descartes, for whom there is no cognitive
experience of sensible reality within which to make a distinction between what is
proper to the object and what occurs in the subject. [...] Indeed [...] the expression
sensible reality is ambiguous because it leads to the misunderstanding that the
body is defned in relation to our senses and not by that which it is; i.e., extended
substance.
10
This important difference between Galileo and Descartes articulates
and sustains one of the fundamental strategies of objectivist thought, namely, the
radical attempt to separate the world from the human being that perceives it. In this
perspective the physical thing does not belong to the primordial experience that the
human being has of the world, but is produced as the result of a long tradition that
posits it as an empty identical something as a correlate of the identifcation pos-
sible according to experiential-logical rules and grounded through them (Husserl,
1952a, p. 93).
This reversal that posits physical things as primordial rather than the things
experienced in concrete human life, which conceives of them as in themselves,
is at the origin of objectivism and of the consequent crisis of science understood
as the loss of its meaning for life (Husserl, 1959, p. 5). It is thus clear for Rota
7
In this regard see Husserl (1959).
8
Bonicalzi (1998), p. 128.
9
Loc. cit.
10
Ibid., pp. 131132.
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Chapter Two
30
that the end of objectivity is the end of the conception of the object as thing in
itself, external to and totally independent of a knowing subject. Compare Husserls
view that
[a]n object existing in itself is never one with which consciousness or the Ego per-
taining to consciousness has nothing to do. The physical thing is a thing belonging
to the surrounding world even if it be an unseen physical thing, even if it be a
really possible, unexperienced but experienceable [] physical thing. (Husserl,
1913, p. 106)
11
Phenomenological refection ought to represent the end of this objectivism.
But in what sense? This question shows that Rota, in the light of Husserls refec-
tion, aims to demonstrate unequivocally the weakness of the idea of objectivity
(Rota, 1985e, p. 9), seeing it as an obstacle for the development of science. The
impossibility of accounting for the phenomenon of sense on the basis of a world
constituted by physical things is one of the clearest signs of the current crisis of
science that, for Rota, manifests itself most strikingly in the studies on artifcial in-
telligence. This discipline does nothing other than updateand enlargethe tragic
failure of modern psychology already denounced by Husserl (Husserl, 1959, p. 18).
12
For Rota the cleavage between science and philosophy in our time
13
has
complicated the development of those sciences, such as artifcial intelligence,
that involve questions that classically were considered to be exclusively under the
dominion of philosophy. He maintains that philosophy must refrain from mak-
ing predictions and limit itself, in its relationship with science, to a practice of
liberation from prejudice.
14
The nature of this and of other impediments con-
nected with objectivism is historical, and it manifests itself fully in the epoch we
are living through today. The end of objectivity thus assumes the connotation of
a completion, of the exhaustion of a way that in the past was fertile and irreplace-
able, but that is now no longer equal to those perspectives that it itself revealed.
15

This end regards exclusively the radical version of objectivism, because in its
11
On the relationship between the conception of the transcendental in Kant and Husserl, see
Derrida (1962), pp. 3839: Both the necessity to proceed from the fact of constituted science
and the regression towards the nonempirical origins are at the same time conditions of pos-
sibility: such are, as we know, the imperatives of every transcendental philosophy faced with
something like the history of mathematics. A fundamental difference remains, however, between
Kants intention and that of Husserl, one that is perhaps less easily distinguishable than would
frst be imagined.
12
Marvin Minsky too, one of the founding fathers of artifcial intelligence, endorses this close
connection between artifcial intelligence and psychological issues, but from a totally different
perspective.
13
Rota (1991a), p. 77.
14
Ibid., p. 78.
15
For an interpretation of the end as completion see Heidegger (1969), pp. 5559.
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non-dogmatic, weakened form, this attitude, conscious of its limits and of its
history, is fully entitled to take its place within that scientifc pluralism that Rota
defends, following Husserl,
16
that objectivity is just one project among many
(Rota, 1991a, pp. 124125).
The constitution of physical things and the development of experimen-
tal techniques are obviously legitimate aspects of scientifc practice, while phe-
nomenologys accusations are directed against the claims of those scientists who
embark on metaphysical speculations on the basis of unrealistic philosophies of
science,
17
because
[w]hen it is actually natural science that speaks, we listen gladly. But it is not always
natural science that speaks when natural scientists are speaking; and it assuredly is
not when they are talking about philosophy of Nature and epistemology as a
natural science. And, above all, it is not natural science that speaks when they try
to make us believe that general truisms such as all axioms express [...] are indeed
expressions of experiential matters of fact. (Husserl, 1913, p. 39)
2.2 Intentionality and Being-in-the-World
Rota is convinced that one of the fundamental tasks of phenomenology is that
of highlighting the primordiality of sense. In his words, if many disputes among
philosophers are disputes about primordiality then phenomenology is yet an-
other dispute about what is most primordial (Rota, 1991a, p. 54). In this way he
evidently does not intend to deny the existence of matter, of objects, or of that
objective dimension proper to science, in favor of a spiritualist option, but rather
to posit as primordial another dimension of the world connected with contexts and
with roles, which is considered primordial because each one of us is confronted
with it primordially. Following the road indicated by Husserl, Rota seeks to conquer
a new perspective that, avoiding the blind alleys of objectivism and subjectivism
alike,
18
acquires a new awareness of the problem of sense. To carry out this project
he has recourse to the theory of intentionality that, as we know, represents one of
the cornerstones of phenomenology.
Without entering into the details of an extremely complex debate, let me just
say that it is important not to mistake the meaning of the word intentionality
(as sometimes occurs in the analytic domain), lending it a juridical sense that as-
similates it to teleology and interprets it as the plan of a subject who pursues an
16
In fact, we allow no authority to curtail our right to accept all kinds of intuition as equally
valuable legitimating sources of cognitionnot even the authority of modern natural science
(Husserl, 1913, p. 39).
17
Rota (1990a); see (1997a), p. 108.
18
The second part of Husserl (1959), pp. 21100, is devoted to an analysis of the opposition
between physicalistic objectivism and transcendental subjectivism.
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Chapter Two
32
end. I shall deal with this question more thoroughly in the last chapter of this
book, but in the meantime the following passage from Rota will permit us, pro-
visionally, to clarify the meaning of the term.
No object can be given without the intervention of a subject who exercises a se-
lection of some features out of a potentially infnite variety. It is impossible, for
example, to recognize that three pennies placed side-by-side with three marbles
are both the same number, without focusing upon the number of and disre-
garding other similarities [...] which may be more striking in other circumstances.
This act of focusing [...] is irreducible to objectivity alone. It requires a contribution
from the perceiving subject which, [...] is ultimately [...] contingent. [...] Yet, we know
that objects come furnished with the quality of already-there-ness. [...] We are
confronted with a paradox. On the one hand, the necessity of an observer turns
the object into a contingent event [...]. On the other, pre-givenness of the world
confronts us as the most obvious of realities. Like all paradoxes, the paradox
results from withholding part of the truth, and it melts away as soon as the mo-
tivation for each of the two alternatives is looked into. (Rota, 1973b; see 1986a,
pp. 247248; emphasis in original)
Instead of constituting an unsolvable paradox, this alternative between neces-
sity and contingency in the nature of an object reveals the woven threads of the
fabric of intentionality. In fact, phenomenology develops an analysis of the con-
stitutive processes, [...] in the description of the sense of operations intentionally
directed on multiple layers of the reality of the surrounding world (Franzini, 1991,
p. 25). In this way, for Sokolowski, Husserlian constitution is characterized as the
function of giving sense (Sokolowski, 1964, p. 196). Unfortunately, the term con-
stitution can also be misunderstood because it seems to refer to the function of an
abstract or intellectual I that phenomenologically shapes a world that is of itself
shapeless and unknowable.
19
Obviously this is not the sense of Husserlian con-
stitution, which is, rather, to be understood as intentional description, i.e., as the
giving of sense, which recognizes intentionally (and does not attribute from outside)
the sense that lives in the multiple regions of our experience, and offers it genesis.
20
The signifcance of the term constitution is one of the most complex ques-
tions of Husserls philosophy, and one that can provide us with another coordinate
to comprehend the philosophical references that are omitted in the work of re-
writing represented by The End of Objectivity. Husserls concept of constitution
was the subject of a fundamental essay of Sokolowskis (Sokolowski, 1964) who,
as we saw, was Rotas friend and colleague for many years andwe may well imag-
inehad a certain infuence on him; and in fact there is evidence of his infuence
in some aspects of Rotas philosophical investigations on mathematics.
21
19
Franzini (1991), p. 26.
20
Loc. cit.; emphasis in original.
21
See Section 3.4.
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Rota maintains that phenomenological analysis of constitution and of sense
is essentially contextual.
22
Indeed, his particular attention to possible semantic mis-
understandings led him to state that there is a temptation for us to say that [...]
sense is relative to a context, but such an expression could implicitly suggest a
possibility for sense to be absolute,
23
thereby surreptitiously smuggling objectiv-
ist prejudices back in. The specifc meaning of the term context used by Rota
can only be made clear in reference to the theme of the world (Rota, 1991a, p. 53)
24

that, in his rewriting, is interpreted as the context par excellence without which the
phenomenon of sense could not be conceived.
Every genuinely phenomenological perspective must make its way through
the insidious philosophical bottleneck to take its place with Husserl on a neutral
ground [...] this side of realism or idealism (Vanni Rovighi, 1969, pp. 120121).

The world must therefore be conceived of in its equi-primordiality with the subject
that opens it; and to this end Rota turns to Heidegger and maintains that our
basic relationship with the world [...] is [...] the relationship [...] with sense that
is made explicit in the modality of being-in-the-world (Rota, 1991a, pp. 6162).
Rotas effort to tread a path free of the toll of objectivism leads him directly to
one of the basic themes of Heideggerian phenomenology. In the objectivist tradi-
tion, as we saw earlier, our relationship with the world is forcedly passed through a
sort of philosophical (or, if you prefer, methodological) sieve to separate what is pri-
mary in it, because it is attributable to the physics of the world of objects, from what
belongs to the subject, and is thus secondary because it is mutable and contingent.
Objectivism, with its problematic correlate of the correspondence theory of
truth, shatters the primordial phenomenon of being-in-the-world to attempt, sub-
sequently, to build a bridge between its two isolated fragments, represented by the
subject and by the world.
25
By contrast, Heideggers Dasein (being there), as con-
stitutively and primordially located in the world, cannot comprehend the world in
an isolated manner since this operation would be equivalent to a separation from
itself;
26
the one cannot be without the other since these two poles refer reciprocally
to one another in their equiprimordiality. In this perspective it is no longer a neces-
sity to refute idealism, understood as a problem of the proof of the existence of
an external world independent of a subjectivity,
27
because the question of whether
there is a world at all and whether its Being can be proved, makes no sense if it is
raised by Dasein as Being-in-the-world.
28
22
Rota (1991a), p. 126.
23
Loc. cit.
24
For an interesting analysis of the various interpretations of this theme in the phenomenological
tradition, see Costa (2002d), pp. 258263.
25
See Heidegger (1927), pp. 252254.
26
Ibid., p. 186.
27
Ibid., p. 247.
28
Ibid., pp. 246247.
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34
At this point it is possible to reconsider (and to dissolve) the question regard-
ing the origin of sense, from which we set out, by showing that it loses value if
we relinquish physical things as a point of departure and foundation. With a sort
of play of words it can be said that the question of the sense of sense is senseless
because it pretends to surprise from a mythical outside, with an objective gaze,
the world, life, and our very subjectivity. This question must instead be turned
upside-down, by showing that its genesis cannot be investigated on the basis of
physical things; indeed, one must assume that the world is [...] primarily a world
of sense
29
if one is to understand the signifcance of physical things. As Rota tells
us, phenomenology is [...] a description of the worldnot of objects and things
and physical laws, but of the world of that which we deal with.
30
This broaches a
fundamental relationship of the worldly context that he describes as dealing-with
(or mattering), which is his rendition of the Heideggerian term Umgang. Rota
maintains that dealing-with is the most neutral term [...] because dealing-with can
be completely passive.
31
Dealing-with denotes the basic relationship of man
with world.
32
The world is the primordial context but this does not mean that it is a unit,
because contexts are not monads devoid of harmony that mutually exclude one an-
other but are rather layered upon each other in various ways.
33
Hence a phenom-
enon does not belong to just one of them but to a multiplicity from which, from
one time to the next, the signifcant contextual sphere emerges. Rota often uses
the word role in the phenomenological investigation of sense and its contextual
characteristics because what we describe are not things but only their roles
in contexts.
34
For him, the privilege attributed to things is due to our prejudice
that, in the layering of roles, there is some layer that is fundamental.
35
Neverthe-
less, also the term role seems inadequate because unfortunately, the physicalistic
language that we have inherited forces us to use terms that are very inappropriate.
In this particular case role suggests the character of a play as against the real
person while our ultimate conclusion will be that there are only roles [...] and no
real life outside the play.
36
In spite of the inevitable compromise with objectivist
language, Rota believes that the term role is preferable to others since it suggests
contextuality.
Once the worldliness of sense has been attained, it has to be understood
in its correlation with the things of the objectivist tradition. Hence Rota empha-
29
Rota (1991a), p. 61.
30
Ibid., pp. 12.
31
Ibid., p. 55.
32
Ibid., p. 62.
33
Ibid., p. 126.
34
Ibid., p. 124.
35
Loc. cit.
36
Ibid., p. 125.
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35
sizes that one of the central problems is that of the layering of the sense of our
perception on underlying phenomena, and how this connection is made.
37
I shall
return later, in discussing the relationship of Fundierung, to the question of the gen-
eral characteristics of layering, but for the moment I limit myself to noting that the
worldly phenomenon of sense is in relationship with a physical plane; for example,
my seeing something is layered upon certain perceptual phenomena such as my eyes
and my brain.
38
Rota clearly shares Husserls position that sense is obtainable only
in unity with natural and material phenomena (Sini, 1987, p. 58).

This observation
is extremely important because it ought to defend Rota against the accusation of
propagandizing a sort of ingenuous idealism or spiritualism.
This layering of the phenomena of sense with respect to a dimension distin-
guished by materiality is an issue that phenomenology will have to investigate. In fact
Rota affrms that, in a phenomenological perspective, the world is founded upon the
world of matter [...] but it itself, looked at nonreductionistically, is a world of con-
texts. The problem lies in understanding the term to found because, as we shall
see, it refers to Fundierung, a Husserlian concept whose re-elaboration represents one
of the most original elements of Rotas refection. In his discussion of Fundierung
Rota states, We will also use certain English terms which have been used over the
years as translations of Fundierung. They are layering, letting, and founding.
39
In
Husserl (we shall examine the term in particular in the Third Logical Investigation) it is
translated as foundation, with the cognates found, founding, foundational,
foundedness. In this regard, it is important to distinguish between the German
terms Fundierung and Begrndung, founding and grounding. While the former refers
to a lower layer that founds a higher one (or ones), the latter refers to the ground,
to that which founds (or grounds) without itself being founded (grounded).
Grounding is similar to the building of a basement that would support the whole
building; founding is similar to the building of a foor that would support only the
foors above.
Thus Fundierung indicates a relationship of dependency between various layers
of the world that can be interpreted in either a reductionist or a phenomenological
sense. In the frst case, it indicates the reduction of an apparent layer to a real one
of which the former is its epiphenomenon. This is not the meaning of Fundierung
as foundation that Rota begins to clarify with a series of examples that must be
patiently followed if one is to trace the comprehensive meaning of his refection
on this theme. As we have seen in the frst part of this book, the use of examples
is a distinctive characteristic of his modality of investigation that, moreover, pro-
vides us with important information on his sources. The frst example, to which
37
Ibid., p. 53.
38
Loc. cit. In this regard Merleau-Ponty states that the relationship between matter and form is
called in phenomenological terminology a relationship of Fundierung [foundation]: the symbolic
function rests on the visual as on a ground (Merleau-Ponty, 1945, p. 146).
39
Ibid., p. 42. In The End of Objectivity Fundierung is not italicized.
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I shall frequently refer, concerns the game of bridge.
40
If I pick up a playing card
asking someone whether it is a trump
41
I will receive an answer that depends on
the context. The trump card is not an arbitrary phenomenon, since any observer
who knows the rules of bridge and the development of the game is able to answer
univocally; but it is not a fact either, since this situation cannot be grasped from
an analysis of the pure physical characteristics of the cards. In this way that which
common language calls fact is transformed, in the phenomenological perspective,
into a contextual happening.
42
In any event, we still have the open question of the
relationship of sense with that dimension of the physical thing relevant to objects
and to facts that Rota calls facticity; we shall investigate it in depth later on. For the mo-
ment I shall dwell upon the pars destruens of his refection aimed at a distancing from
the objectivism with which common sense and scientistic philosophies are imbued.
To conclude this part of my analysis I have to come to terms with another
aspect of objectivism criticized by Rota: reductionism. In his view the main thesis
of phenomenology is that there is a non-reductionist attitude we can take towards
every human phenomenon, and we can only understand the phenomenon if we
describe it as such, previous to any reduction to other attitudes.
43
In this perspec-
tive it can be said that for any given phenomenon there exists a non-reductionist at-
titude that not only possesses equal dignity with respect to the reductionist attitude
but that also must precede it because it is primordial. In fact one must never forget
that science is a human spiritual accomplishment which presupposes as its point
of departure, both historically and for each new student, the intuitive surrounding
world of life, pregiven as existing for all in common (Husserl, 1959, p. 121).
Rota criticizes a great number of philosophical and scientifc opinions for their
reductionist approach that he ascribes to a materialist (or perhaps more precisely,
physicalist)
44
attitude, and that he describes as an interpretation of reality accord-
ing to which really existing things manifest themselves physically.
45
Rota defends
the autonomy of every level of description and criticizes the attempts to reduce
music, psychology, or biology to sophisticated corollaries of physics, since every
worldly phenomenon can be genuinely understood only if one grasps its intrinsic,
primordial, and irreducible sense.
This identifcation of reductionism with materialismso blatantly unilateral
and biasedwas undoubtedly infuenced by the philosophical opinions dominant
40
Ryle (1954) inspired this example.
41
A suit that in briscola is determined by picking the top card of a just-shuffed deck, and in
bridge by means of a process of bidding among the players at the beginning of the game.
42
Rota (1991a), p. 10.
43
Ibid., p. 75.
44
Rota (1991a), p. 25.
45
Loc. cit. For Rota, one of the most traditional expressions of this prejudice is represented by
the mechanicism that is presented as the classical form of materialism; ibid., p. 138.
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37
in the English-language cultural context that Karl Popper (19021994) critiqued.
46

I believe that this imbalance within Rotas argumentations was part of a rhetorical
strategy that aimed to fortify the side of the wall that was exposed to the attacks
of his most numerous and formidable enemies.
47
Leaving these rhetorical and cul-
tural aspects aside, and to understand better the successive developments of his
phenomenological investigation, I propose to analyze reductionism in a different
perspective, interpreting it, in mereological terms, as
the opinion according to which any property of a complex system (a whole) is
completely determined by the structure of the system, i.e., by the number, char-
acteristics, and mutual relations of its constituent parts [...] [T]he reductionist [...]
will maintain that the properties of wholes can be explained [...] on the basis of
their structure, and it is precisely this explanation that is called reduction [...] [Ac-
cording to the radical reductionist] in the whole there is nothing more than the
parts of which it is constituted [...] the reductionist [...] considers only the deter-
mination of wholes by means of their parts. [The reductionist] does not take into
consideration the possibility that an object, becoming a part of a complex struc-
ture, can be modifed, [or] that the properties it manifests independently of the
structure may not always be the same [properties] it manifests when it becomes a
part [of that structure]. (Amsterdamski, 1981, pp. 6364)
In this perspective I intend to restructure the sense of Rotas statements, show-
ing how the end of objectivity and the critique of reductionism are founded upon
the complex relationship between the whole and the parts and on the relationship
of Fundierung. The latter is the true keystone of his critique of reductionism, since
it allows us to understand the manifestation of emergent novelties in the whole
that are absolutely not reducible to the resultant of the simple parts.
Fundierung will clarify both the critique of reductionism and the possibility of a
correlation between sense and physical things. To develop this interpretation fully we
will have to take a few steps beyond Rotas text to grasp the importance that Husserls
theory of the wholes and of the parts possesseswith regard to the Fundierung
relationshipfor the critique of reductionism. Since Rota himself wrote but a single
text on this specifc theme, Fundierung as a Logical Concept (Rota, 1989a),
48
we shall have
to track down the relevant references in a number of essays and articles in which he
disseminated his ideas. The description of Fundierung entails a diffculty similar to
that of the logician who teaches the basic operations between sets [...] A teacher has
46
Popper criticized the fact that, for the frst time, the absolute denial of the existence of con-
sciousness entered the universities, in support of a radical version of fashionable materialism.
See Popper (1991).
47
Seventy-two years after the publication of Husserls Logical Investigations, the barbarians are be-
sieging the citadel of phenomenology and crying in guttural accents: Put up or shut up (Rota,
1973b; see 1986a, p. 252).
48
See Rota (1997a), pp. 172181.
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no alternative but to proceed indirectly, leading his students through a sequence of
examples, hoping that the underlying concept will eventually shine through.
49
Para-
phrasing Heidegger we could say that from the question what is Fundierung? one
awaits a defnition and a technical answer, which Rota foregoes to examine some ex-
emplary relationships. I shall begin my exposition with the relationship he considered
one of the most important: the phenomenon of reading.
2.3 Reading and Seeing
Each morning we open our eyes upon a world covered with notices, indications,
articles, prohibitions, captions, and road signs that follow us throughout the day.
Paraphrasing Derrida, it could be said that we are always watched over by a text.
The function of reading is so pervasive in our society that it is diffcult for a com-
pletely illiterate person not only to work but, simply, to survive without the ability
to distinguish the label on a bottle of mineral water from the one on a bottle of
acid. We all belong to a world of letters and words in which reading appears as the
most obvious of human activitiesand yet this familiarity does not mean that we
understand what reading is. Not even the scientifc disciplines can help us to grasp
defnitively this phenomenon of which we have only an average and vague under-
standing, because behind the obviousness of this simple act lurks the problem
of sense. This is why philosophy in this epoch needs to rethink and rediscover the
sense of such simple actions as seeing and reading.
50
Rota denounces the insuffciency of the reductionist interpretations of read-
ing
51
that simplify the phenomenon, eliminating all its characteristics that are con-
sidered extraneous. A typical example is the attempt to derive reading from the
physical act of looking at ink stains that subsequently are interpreted as symbols
having meaning.
52
In this direction Rota rereads
53
some interesting analyses of the
phenomenon of reading contained in the Philosophical Investigations,
54
going well be-
yond the intentions of Wittgenstein who explicitly declares that he is not count-
ing the understanding of what is read as part of reading for purposes of this
investigation.
55
Nevertheless, Rota insists that two meanings of the term reading
are present in Wittgenstein: the frst refers to physical (neurological, biological, and
optical) processes, while the second regards function.
It is necessary to make explicit and to develop Rotas refections in order to
show how the reduction of reading to the interpretation of ink stains, understood
49
Ibid., p. 173.
50
See Althusser and Balibar (1965), p. 16. See also DAlessandro (1980).
51
See Rota (1991a), p. 39.
52
Loc. cit.
53
Rota (1985e), pp. 89.
54
Wittgenstein (1953), pp. 6170.
55
Ibid., p. 61.
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39
dogmatically, leads to aporetic outcomes that deny aspects of that selfsame mate-
rial reality to which everything is intended to be referred. In fact, the conviction
of the priority of physical existence leads one to deny (paradoxically) the existence
of many real and everyday situations, such as this sheet of paper on which you
are reading. In essence, Rota was attempting to reassert Husserls criticism of the
empiricists who have apparently failed to see that the very scientifc demands that
they, in their theses, present to all cognitions are also addressed to those theses
themselves (Husserl, 1913, p. 38).
For Rota, materialist reductionism claims that the understanding inherent in
the reading of any writingthe page of a newspaper, for examplederives di-
rectly from the atoms and the molecules of the paper and the ink that mysteri-
ously organize into the copy that becomes the newspaper (Rota, 1991a, p. 65).
56

If reductionists were consistent they would have to admit that this mysterious or-
ganizing, even if unknown, will itself have to be reducible to physical reality. By
granting reality only to matter (in an exaggerated and extreme way) one would have
to conclude, in a manner that is evidently absurd, that the phenomenon of the
understanding of these lines of text does not exist; in fact no chemical or physical
analysis of a sheet of paper can render in itself and for itself the informatory con-
tent of a written page. Taking a very simple example, let us consider the two words
philosophy and PHILOSOPHY.
57
Physically the two words have very little in common. The frst is noticeably
smaller than the second, and consequently a smaller quantity of ink was employed
for it. Furthermore, let us suppose that the frst is written with red ink on parch-
ment while the second is reproduced on a computer monitor. Comparing in the
same order the letters that compose the two words (the shape of the ink stains
that constitute the letters of the frst and the pixels of the second) we realize that
they are signifcantly different. At this point, following a purely physicalist logic we
could not conclude that the two words have the same meaning, because the rules
of reading transcend the materiality of what is written and physically do not exist
anywhere.
The objection that calls upon manuals, dictionaries, and texts of phonetics
containing rules and indications is ineffective; for a radical materialist such rules are
a strong-box that is irremediably closed due to the paradox triggered by physicalist
dogmatism. In fact, to learn to read one must read the dictionary; but to be able
to read the dictionary one must already be able to read. The rules of reading contain
a sense that cannot be disclosed precisely because of this philosophical obstinacy:
56
In particular, Rota criticizes the positions taken by the neurologist Steven Rose; see Rota
(1997h), p. 115 (republished in 1997a, p. 187). Positions of this type are widespread among ana-
lytic philosophers; in this regard see Fodor (1975) and Dennett (1991).
57
This argumentation was developed based on my reading of Rotas texts; I subsequently had
occasion to discuss it with him at great length.
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for an extreme materialist, the rules of literacy are literally metaphysical. Obvi-
ously this is a banal example and is effective only in the case of an ingenuous and
caricature-like reductionism; but, nevertheless, even the most sophisticated reduc-
tionist hypothesis is based on the unexpressed precomprehension of the identity
of the meaning of two letters written in signifcantly different ways. This is the
fundamental situation I am anxious to make clear. We can say that learning to read
means facing the circular structure of comprehension that Heidegger called the
hermeneutical circle.
Furthermore, if we analyze the problem not simply at the lexical level but go
on to the levels of grammar and syntax we become aware of the diffculty involved
in segmenting the comprehension of a written text into a succession of logical
steps or of algorithms. This is because the sense of a sentence is, in general, not
grasped in a cumulative way, and (inversely) not in a series of successive approxi-
mations either. Despite the apparent simplicity of our modality of writing, which
proceeds from right to left and from top to bottom and uses spacing to subdivide
groups of letters into words, the comprehension of a text cannot be reduced to a
linear succession. We are, rather, confronted with a complex phenomenon in which
sense is not only accumulated (or approximated) linearly and unidirectionally but
is also layered in a multilinear and multidirectional structure. The new words that
we read towards the right can also invest with new meanings some of the words
we have already read on our left.
58
This is why the notion of textuality is that which
is not given in an immediate way to what is intuitively evident, but is constituted in a
reference.
59
In fact we must never forget that the word of a text does not mean as
such, but in relation to other, to something that is not present, but that intervenes in
the very heart of the word to constitute it.
60
This phenomenon is generalized if we think of the relation between sentences,
and of internal references between pages, chapters, or books. Here, we are confront-
ed with the extraordinary complexity of the phenomenon of reading that different
theories have had to deal with, as in the case of systems theory with its concept of
feedback, or of hermeneutics with the circular relation between text and context (to
limit ourselves to two approaches that Rota knew very well). Albeit from different
perspectives, both approaches highlight that problem of the relation between whole
and part in the phenomenon of reading which represents, as we shall see in a mo-
58
Lacan examined this phenomenon in the structure of the aprs coup, showing that the close of
a sentence has a retroactive effect of sense; see Lacan (1966), p. 200. In this regard Rota told
me that he had been the witness of an interesting episode concerning the French psychoanalyst.
His account helped me to clarify Lacans interest in topology and to structure the central part
of the monograph I have recently dedicated to this scholar; see Palombi (2009b), pp. 4348 and
pp. 111112.
59
Dalmasso (1990b), p. 49.
60
Loc. cit.
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41
ment, a crucial element also for an understanding of Rotas thinking, and which con-
nects his critique of reductionism with his refection on Fundierung.
These considerations also allow us a digression on the theme of hypertexts,
whose applications have been rather ubiquitous in recent years. Normally, the most
common approach to the hypertext is that of describing it in opposition to the lin-
ear text, but what we have just seen shows that, strictly speaking, there are no linear
texts and all texts are hypertexts. From a technological standpoint, the novelty of
the advances in informatics consists in an extraordinary increase in the speed of
managing information, while from the philosophical (and didactic) standpoint it
consists in the possibility of showing the functioning in action of every text.
At this point, if we are to avoid the aforementioned absurdities, we will neces-
sarily have to conclude that the phenomenon of reading cannot be deduced from
the simple materiality of what is written. This situation involves not only the under-
standing of a text but also the more general understanding of what occurs in phe-
nomena of perception, since analogous considerations can be developed also for
the fgures of Gestalt. In fact, if we persist in granting reality to physical existence
alone we absolutely cannot understand the extraordinary change that has taken
place in the meaning of a fgure that has remained physically unchanged. Rota fur-
ther considered the game of chess in his criticism of reductionist aporias (probably
inspired by Wittgenstein, 1953, p. 15). Although this game requires pieces and a
chessboard, Rota emphasizes that we can understand nothing about its rules from
the simple observation of the pieces and board themselves, which can be of very
different shapes and materials. Furthermore, he notes that the mental acts required
for playing do not relate to the rules of the game except to someone who [...]
already knows chess (Rota, 1991a, p. 41; emphasis added). This example is a variant
that presents the same argumentative structure as the example of reading but that
is not able to refute the potential objection that calls for a manual for the game of
chess. In fact, in the case of reading, every manual becomes inaccessible since it is
incomprehensible. The example of reading, if compared to that of chess, seems to
drive the reductionist and the radical materialist into a sort of blind alley.
After this analysis of the paradoxes produced by the identifcation of reading
with physical process alone, let us return to analyzing it from the standpoint of
function. Rota tells us that The text is the facticity. The content of the text is the
function, in this case, the sense. He affrms that, for any text, what matters to us
is its content; if we identify sense with materiality we are in error.
61
In fact it is easy
to imagine that the same sense can be summarized in another text, repeated orally, or
circulated by email on the Internet by means of a modem.
Rota wonders about this erroneous identifcation, but above all about its con-
dition of possibility represented by the indispensability of a physical substrate that
61
See Rota (1991a), p. 67.
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leads to confusion between a text and its content.
62
Hence logical hygiene de-
mands that we keep the terms text and content of the text separate and equal.
The text may be an object. The content of the text is not an object in any ordinary
sense (Rota, 1989a; see 1997a, p. 174). One must therefore conclude that con-
tentsensecannot be located in any physical place.
63
If you sought, for example,
to get out of the diffculty by locating it in the mind, you would have to face the
even more diffcult problem of the relationship between the content and your
mind, which cannot be identifed without making a crass reduction or error.
64
Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that even though the phenomenon of reading
is correlated to the understanding of a quid (a sense) that is not physical, Rota is by no
means a supporter of any sort of spiritualism or of an updated version of occasion-
alism. He seeks to tread a sort of philosophical third way that takes into account the
materiality of the text and the physical elements of reading, but insists that sense cannot
be reduced to these elements.
We can better understand this effort, which represents one of the hallmarks
of his thinking, if we consider his reformulation of the question that correlates
the text with the facticity and the sense (the content) with the function, and that
refects on the relationship of dependency that subsists between these two levels
(Rota, 1989a).
65
The frst characteristic feature of this relationship is that it is not
transitive,
66
which makes it impossible to reconstruct a chain of cause and effect
that, considering the dependency of sense on the readers behavior, and the further
dependency of sense on the texts materiality, would refer and reduce everything
to the physical level. This brings into focus one of the fundamental problems of
Rotas phenomenological analysis: the problem of understanding what is to be
meant by dependency of the content of what I read on the text that I read.
67
Rota
describes this relation, exemplifed in the phenomenon of reading by the relation-
ship between text and sense, in terms of Husserls notion of Fundierung, which we
shall now investigate more closely.
2.4 Fundierung in the Third Logical Investigation
To investigate the relationship of Fundierung I shall return to Rotas analysis of
contextual sense touched upon earlier. His remarks are evidently inspired by the
texts of Husserl and Heidegger even if, consistent with Rotas practice of rewrit-
ing, these authors are not always explicitly mentioned. First, Rota poses the lexical
62
Loc. cit.
63
Loc. cit.
64
Loc. cit.
65
See Rota (1997a), pp. 174181.
66
Ibid., p. 175.
67
Loc. cit.
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question regarding the necessity of indicating the elements present in a context
correctly, while simultaneously avoiding the term object, in order to avoid any
inappropriate reference to the physical dimension.
68
This precaution, however, is not always consistently respected, and at times
the term manages to sneak in, complicating the understanding of the passage. In
any event Rota, basing himself on the assumption that the sense of an element of
a context is to function for some purpose, uses the term function to indicate
that which might otherwise be called contextual object.
69
In order to clarify Fundierung in the light of function, I shall examine an exam-
ple that Rota extrapolated from Ryles book Dilemmas (Ryle, 1954), and that he sub-
sequently re-elaborated from the standpoint of his phenomenological perspective.
Every card of a deck can be used for countless different games. Hence, for Rota,
[t]here is a relation of Fundierung between the function of the queen of hearts,
whether in poker or in bridge, and the actual card. One cannot infer the function
(the role) of the queen of hearts in either game from plain knowledge, no mat-
ter how detailed, of the queen of hearts as a card. (Rota, 1989a)
70
Consistent with what we have said about the phenomenon of reading, we must
note the senselessness of the question regarding the physical place in which one
can situate the role of the queen of hearts in a game (of bridge, for example). Rota
emphasizes how such a role is correlated by complex Fundierung relationships to
brain processes, to the physics of playing cards, to the players ambiance, and so
on, ad infnitum,
71
and yet the role itself is not reducible and is not identifable with
any physical phenomenon. This example highlights a fundamental aspect of the
theory of Fundierung, namely: When we focus on the context of a text, or on the
role of the queen of hearts in a bridge game, we focus on a contextual function of
the content. The function of the queen of hearts in a specifc bridge game matters.
72
Rota conceives of Fundierung as a relationship constituted by two correlated
terms: facticity and function. Facticity (represented in our previous examples by
the written text, or by the queen of hearts as a mere card of the deck) plays a role
in sustaining function, but only function has a strict relation with sense. Facticity
represents an indispensable element of access to function; in fact, it is impossible
to play cards without some type of factic support upon which to represent the
cards (whether cardboard or a computer monitor), and yet one cannot individuate
in facticity the sense of any game. These considerations hold true more generally
for every form of text or language.
68
See Rota (1991a), p. 157.
69
Ibid., pp. 126127.
70
See Rota (1997a), p. 175.
71
Loc. cit.
72
Ibid., p. 176.
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What, in essence, is Fundierung? I could say that
[a]s I speak to you, you listen to me through sounds which somehow make sense.
Sense and sound are related by a Fundierungszusammenhang, a relation that founds.
The sense of my words cannot be without the sound, but I cannot glean the sense
from the simple sound as such [...]. Husserl gave profound and very beautiful de-
scriptions of Fundierungszusammenhang and of its variants, the upshot of which is
to prove that the expression A is founded on B is independent and autonomous
of the relations of membership and containment. (Rota, 1987a, p. 124; see 1997a,
p. 190)
Fundierung is described as a primordial relationship that is irreducible to more sim-
ple relationships (material relationships in particular) because otherwise we would
confuse function with facticity, falling into a typical reductionist error. Facticity is
necessary for the relation of foundation because if we eliminate function, facticity
will vanish along with it. Nevertheless facticity is not self-suffcient and must not
overshadow the function it founds. Rota emphasizes how this tenuous umbilical
cord between function and facticity is a source of anxiety for reductionism and for
common sense (considered as a sort of unconscious reductionism) that wish to
identify functions with physical objects. I recall, for example, that both reduction-
ism and common sense harbor the illusion of being able to reduce functions to
simple brain processes, thanks to psychology and the cognitive sciences, clinging
desperately to anything that can free them from the burden of an autonomous and
non-reductionist theory of Fundierung. Rota maintains that it is possible to subsume
the concept of role, previously broached, under the more general concept of func-
tion, as the following example of the passenger shows.
73
Imagine you are in an airport in front of a door that leads to the runway. A
plane lands and a small crowd of persons comes out of the door and is immediately
identifed by the passport control offcer as a group of incoming passengers. Now,
suppose that the same scene unfolds in an unspecifed place. In this second case the
offcer would not be able to interpret as passengers the persons who swarm out of
just any door, since they might equally as well be clerks leaving an offce, or soldiers
in civilian dress who are going on leave, as travelers arriving from abroad. This
example ought to highlight the fact that one can identify a class of persons on the
basis of the role they play against the background of a given context. Hence Rota
concludes that in no case do we have a pure and simple perception of persons or
of things without a simultaneous identifcation of a function.
74
The example of the passenger is to be interpreted on the basis of the relation-
ship of Fundierung, illustrating the fact that roles, too, have need of a factic and a
functional pole. We identify the factic in the persons bodies, in the fabric their
73
Rota (1985e), p. 9.
74
Loc. cit.
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baggage and clothing is made of, in the direction in which they walk, in the paper
their tickets are printed on, and in the airport structures. Onto this (obviously par-
tial) list is grafted a series of intentional references that correlate, for example, the
paper and the ink of the tickets, to the places the passengers are coming from, to
the writing on the arrivals board. All of these are functions standing out against the
contextual background represented by the airport.
This contextual aspect is fundamental also for understanding the importance
Rota attributes to the tool, seen as the fundamental demand of Fundierung, and to
its context represented by the tool room (Rota, 1991a, p. 157).
75
Imagine a tool
room in which you are surrounded by objects that are called tools because they are
meaningful in light of a possible use, while this defnition is perfectly indifferent to
their chemical and physical composition.
76
Why is it that in a tool room a hammer and
a nail seem familiar and appropriate while a comb appears out of place? In a horizon
characterized by objectivism one ought to start out from the nail and the hammer to
discuss the conditions of possibility of their reciprocal correlation and of their being
correlated with the tool room. For Rota such a refection goes in the wrong direction
and therefore must be reversed; it is not possible to conceive of the factic and sepa-
rate existence of the two tools as the condition of possibility of their correlation but,
on the contrary, it is precisely the relation that represents the transcendental dimen-
sion of the nail and of the hammer and, in general, of the tool room.
77
In the same
way, the out-of-placeness of the comb must be grasped on the basis of the contextual
background that does not disclose relations of usability with the background of the
tool room. Conversely, in a barbershop the presence of a hammer would be equally
enigmatic if in the context there were not something to break or hit.
To pose the question about the relational possibility of objects of common
sense is erroneous: When we ask the question how do they relate, we are lying,
because we do not frst fnd the object and then ask how we relate it. What you fnd
from the start are objects that are already related to each other by their possible
joint functionalities (Rota, 1991a, p. 117).
78
Rota affrms that the characteristic
feature of objects in the context is precisely that of being generalized tools
namely, functions.
79
Functionality can be properly described only as part and parcel of a network
of referential functions of possibilities; just as you cannot defne trump card
75
See Heidegger (1927), p. 105; and Wittgenstein (1953), pp. 67. The examples are inspired by
Heidegger, as Rota states explicitly (see Rota 1991a, p. 157, note 24). I must, however, note that
Rota uses tool as the translation of the German Zeug, while in fact the English translation of
Sein und Zeit uses tool to translate Werkzeug (Macquarrie and Robinson translation, p. 575). Fur-
thermore, Rota translates the German Werkstatt to tool room, instead of the term workshop
used in the English translation.
76
Gian-Carlo Rota, conversation with the author; see Heidegger (1927), pp. 9697.
77
78
Ibid., p. 97.
79
Rota (1991a), pp. 126127.
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alone without referring indirectly to the entire game of bridge, so we view the
tools as possibly being correlated to an indirect function.
80
From the phenom-
enological viewpoint, pencil, paper, and ink are not physical things but tools, i.e.,
functions in Fundierung relations.
81
In fact, the pen with which I write, commonly
considered from a material point of view, is, strictly speaking, a function that lets me
write.
82
Rota maintains that we can recognize a certain tool as such only by virtue
of our familiarity with its possible functions. This is why he criticizes the absur-
dity of the physical reductionism that, examining the simple assemblage of plastic,
metal, and ink, will not be able to grasp the nature of the pen, which is accessible
only to one who wishes to see its function beyond all the facticities upon which it
is founded. This example ought to make it clear that
[a] craftsman, a scientist, a man of the world regard the objects of daily com-
merce primarily as tools. It is a prerequisite of a tool that it offer its user a reliable
guarantee of sameness. Only when the tool fails or becomes otherwise problematic,
as when the need for a new tool is felt, does the contingency of all toolness reveal
itself to the user, like a crack in a smoothly plastered wall. In such moments of cri-
sis, the tool-user is forced to engage in a search for origins, for lost motivation, for
forgotten mechanisms that had come to be taken for granted, much like a garage
mechanic in his daily work. (Rota, 1973b)
83
In this passage, Rota reformulates Heideggers thesis that individuates in usability
the primordial dimension of the relationship with a being within-the-world, which
is not primarily known in its being in itself, but read [...] according to contextual
references.
84
Hence it is important to reassert that only subsequently can the
object isolated as thing derive from the item of equipment [Zeug] when [...] its
functionality to the environment [...] enters in crisis.
85
In the last lines of the pas-
sage above, Rota emphasizes the importance of situations of crisis that, as we shall
see, take on fundamental importance in his philosophical analysis of mathematical
research. Such research always keeps in mind the function of phenomenological
epoch, or bracketing, reinterpreted as the effort to isolate the purely contextual
component of functions in order to describe this component independently of
facticity (Rota, 1991a, p. 143). Following the example of Heideggers thought,
86
one
80
Ibid., p. 118.
81
Rota (1989a); see (1997a), p. 177 (emphasis in original).
82
Loc. cit. (emphasis in original).
83
See Rota (1986a), p. 248 (emphasis in original). This passage is clearly inspired by Heidegger
(1927), p. 103.
We recall, moreover, that also Kuhn affrms: As in manufacture so in scienceretooling is an
extravagance to be reserved for the occasion that demands it. The signifcance of crises is the
indication they provide that an occasion for retooling has arrived (Kuhn, 1962, p. 76).
84
Marini (1982b), p. LVIII.
85
Loc. cit.
86
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cannot forget that situations of crisis can also be reinterpreted contextually, since
among the numerous ways of being in relation in a context there is also the pos-
sibility of dubiousness, obtrusiveness, and irrelevance.
87
At the end of this analysis, following Rota we can adopt the expression net-
work of functions to indicate the contextual elements. Thus Rota concludes that
the objects of everyday commerce are really just pure functions and there are
complex Fundierung relations that relate them to physicalities. In this same per-
spective the world is disclosed to us as a network of related functions.
88
In order to investigate more thoroughly this disclosure of the world in a phe-
nomenological perspective we must now examine Fundierung in relation to Husserls
theory of the whole and to the example of the star, which represent the hallmark
of my present work.
2.5 The Star, the Whole, and the Part
I defned reductionism with regard to the relationship between whole and part to
overcome the limit of Rotas view that seemed to identify it with physicalist materi-
alism.
89
Furthermore, I proposed to interpret his critique in the light of his analyses
of Husserls concept of Fundierung in the Third Investigation, which, signifcantly, is
dedicated to the theory of wholes and parts. At this point I believe that all the ele-
ments are available to show that Rota does not bring to completion an important
aspect of his refection,
90
but limits himself to a critique of physicalism and of
mechanicism without opening up a broader philosophical horizon.
I want frst to emphasize that the meaning Husserl attaches to part, defned in
the Third Logical Investigation and shared by Rota, is very far from the one normally
accepted in common language. In fact, Husserl states: We interpret the word part
in the widest sense: we may call anything a part that can be distinguished in an
object. In this enlarged meaning, everything is a part that is an objects real pos-
session, not only in the sense of being a real thing, but also in the sense of being
something really in something, that truly helps to make it up. It is evident that
the term part is not used so widely in ordinary discourse.
91
The extremely broad
range of this conception can be understood better if we consider the fact that, in
this acception, predicates such as red and round are also admitted as parts.
92
Husserls perspective is revolutionary because it admits as parts of the whole
even characteristics that entail pure possibility, in an effort to conceive of an ex-
traordinary variety of possible parts that have nothing else in common apart from
87
Rota (1991a), p. 143.
88
Ibid., pp. 158160.
89
See Section 2.1.
90
See Cerasoli (1999), p. 14. Moreover, Rota himself expressed appreciation for these observa-
tions; see Rota (1998f).
91
Husserl (19001901), Vol. II, pp. 45.
92
Loc. cit.
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belonging to an object in a broad and extremely far-reaching sense.
93
Husserl speci-
fes his concept on the basis of a cardinal difference between independent and
non-independent parts, respectively defned as pieces and moments.
94
I do not
wish to enter into the merits of the phenomenological analyses developed in the
Third Investigation, because I do not presume to appraise the different interpretations
of Husserls text but, rather, only to use it, as I have done until now, to understand
Rotas philosophical perspective.
So, my point is this: in Husserls text the notion of whole is instituted on
the basis of the relation of non-independence, which receives [...] the denomina-
tion of relation of foundation that is understood as primordial (Piana 1977,
p. 19). We thus begin to clarify the relationship between the theory of wholes and
parts and the relation of Fundierung, whose particular relation of dependency Rota
emphasized. In fact, the notion of whole, defned by way of the concept of
Fundierung, refers to a range of contents which are all covered by a single founda-
tion without the help of further contents. The contents of such a range we call its
parts (Husserl, 19001901, Vol. II, p. 34).
I have often asserted that Rota does not contest the results of objectivist and
reductionist science or (obviously) its right to pursue its own research perspective;
what he criticizes is the pretense of objectivism and radical reductionism to claim
to be the only legitimate philosophical interpretations of science. Since I have con-
nected two different conceptions of the relation between whole and part with these
different perspectives it is necessary, from a pluralistic standpoint, not to deny one
or the other but, rather, to delimit their respective felds of validity. The possibility
of mapping out this delimitation manifests itself clearly by pitting
the term whole (implying its organicity) against the expression of mere
sum (indicating an ensemble analyzable in its parts in the same way that a wall
could be materially disassembled into the bricks it is built of) [...]. In fact, the no-
tion of whole determined on the basis of the relation of foundation draws a
distinction [...] between ensembles of objects that are whole [...] and ensembles
that are not [...]. Hence just any given ensemble of objects [...] will not be said to
be whole. Ensembles of objects that are not wholes will be [...] characterized by
the fact that they are not covered by a unitary foundation. If we decide to reserve
the term set for the latter, then we shall distinguish wholes from sets. (Piana,
1977, pp. 2425)
For Rota, Husserls concept of whole in the pregnant sense (der prgnante Begriff
des Ganzen) is precisely intended to distinguish the whole as function understood in
a relation of Fundierung from the set as a neutral collection of heterogeneous parts.
Rota, however, (once again) declares himself to be dissatisfed with Husserls termi-
nology, because it is still easily equivocal. Husserl defnes the relation of Fundierung
93
Loc. cit.
94
Loc. cit.
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as a particular relation of dependency between two poles, the moment and the
whole, in order to emphasize the distinction between whole and set more effec-
tively. Rota calls the frst of these two poles factic moment or facticity and the
second, function. We can thus affrm that between whole and set lies the border
between a non-radical reductionism and the phenomenological perspective that
Rota intends to evidence and to valorize.
We need to examine the discourse more closely by confronting the problem of
the layering of the relation of layered foundation, of which Husserl emphasizes the
singleness insofar as every content is foundationally connected, whether directly or indirectly, with
every content (Husserl, 19001901, p. 34; emphasis in original). It is therefore possible
to distinguish between parts that are in a relation either of mediated or of immediate
Fundierung, because the iterability [...] of the relation of mediacy permits the introduc-
tion of differences of degree, thus making it possible to individuate a greater or less
closeness [...] of the parts with respect to the whole (Piana, 1977, p. 29). These differ-
ences of degree are defned by Rota as layerings.
To understand Rotas analysis, and to exemplify his conception of a layered
relationship of Fundierung, let us consider Husserls key example of the star-shape.
95

He writes of a complex star-shape built out of smaller star-shapes, which in their
turn are composed of stretches, built out of segments that are, ultimately, made of
points. In the phenomenological perspective we can say that there is a frst relation
of Fundierung between the points and the stretches and a second, layered upon the
frst, between the stretches and the star. Since we see the star through the stretches
and the stretches through the points, in Rotas terminology we can say that the
stretches are factic moments of the star and the points are factic moments of each
stretch.
The whole that Husserl describes as star-shape is translated in Rotas vocabu-
lary by the term function. Stretches, segments, points, and other characteristics
regarding this shape in any sense are admitted as parts of the same star-shape.
In the example the star represents a whole in the phenomenological acceptation,
which, as function, is founded both by the stretch-parts and by the point-parts.
The points, segments, stretches, and star-shape have a fxed order of founda-
tions, in which what is founded at one level serves to found the level next above,
and in such a manner that at each level new forms, only reachable at that level, are
involved.
96
For Rota, in a layered sequence of relations of Fundierung, which correlate
the parts of a succession A, B, C... to one another, term B will be, respectively,
the factic moment of term C and the function of term A in a layered relationship
of Fundierung. Each of these layers depends on the successive layer without being
determined by it: Fundierung [...] is a new kind of dependency which we need to
95
Husserl (19001901), p. 40.
96
Loc. cit.
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properly describe without presuming that one layer determines the other. Hence
Rota insists that the layers have to be kept separate and distinct, they have to be
described independently.
97
Thus Rota, in a personal way, re-elaborates the relation of Fundierung while
passing over Husserls argumentations; hence I will limit myself to presenting his
theses without further reference to Husserls text. In this extremely general and
broad sense of the concept of the Fundierung relation, a hypothetical list of the
parts of a word written on a sheet of paper ought to include not only the dots of
ink, the lines that trace every letter of the word, and the letters of the word itself,
but also the language in which the word acquires sense, the contextual sense of the
word, the senses in which the word is understood, the possible meanings the word
can acquire in other contexts, and so on.
Going back to the example of a word written on a sheet of paper, Rota main-
tains that when the phenomenological list of the parts grows longer, we can see a
superposition of foundations that constitute a layering wholly analogous to the one
examined in the example of the star-shape. In general, then, it can be said that, in
a whole, two layers that present themselves as successive constitute a couple whose
elements are facticity and function. For example, the parts letters and word
belong to two successive layers, and word and its sense to two others (omitting
momentarily the problem of polysemy). It is impossible to characterize with preci-
sion the notion of successive layer and to determine further the relation between
the letters that constitute a word and the word itself, apart from recognizing such a
relation as an instance of Fundierung.
The layering of the relations of foundation can be applied to Ryles example,
imagining that in a certain game the trump card is the queen of hearts. In this way
one emphasizes that the phenomenon of a given card of the deck being a trump
is founded upon a sequence of dependencies.
98
In brief, we can say that the
function of the queen of hearts in the game of bridge is facticly correlated to the
function of the queen of hearts as a card of the deck, which is, in its turn, facticly
correlated to the queen of hearts as a design printed on one of the cards. What is
more, there is a further relation of Fundierung between this design and the physical
composition of the card. These examples, for Rota, demonstrate that the layering
of the Fundierung relation is complex, since facticity is not necessarily to be identi-
fed with a physical layer. In a translation, for example, the facticity is the facticity
of words, grammar, syntax, and of meaning considered as suchit is not the fac-
ticity of anything physical.
99
Similar investigations will fnd an application in Rotas philosophical refection
on mathematics as part of a far broader project, which we could describe as his
97
Rota (1991a), p. 94.
98
Loc. cit.
99
Ibid., p. 111.
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theory of Fundierung. Here, his research fndsas Husserl put itthe entrance-
gate of phenomenology,
100
that third way which attempts to overcome the op-
position between objectivism and psychologism. Rotas is a particular interpretation
of the project of Heideggers that pursues a more precise characterization of the
concept of Reality in the context of a discussion of the epistemological questions
oriented by this idea which have been raised in realism and idealism (Hei-
degger, 1927, p. 228). Rotas theory of Fundierung is not expressed in a systematic
text but presents itself in his writings as a collection of ideas that delineate as many
projects of development; I limit myself to indicating two of them as the principal
potentialities of Rotas philosophical refection. The frst regards the possibility of
formalizing the relation of Fundierung, in the hope that the concept of Fundierung
will one day enrich logic, as implication and negation have done in their time. That
is, Fundierung is a connective which can serve as a basis for valid inferences and
for the statement of necessary truths (Rota, 1989a; see 1997a, p. 172). This idea
takes on a fully programmatic character in his writings Husserl and the Reform of Logic
(Rota, 1973a),
101
Tre sensi del discorso in Heidegger (Rota, 1987a, pp. 123126),
102
and
The Concept of Mathematical Truth (Rota, 1990a),
103
in which the relation of Fundierung
is made the cornerstone of a project of enlargement and comprehensive restruc-
turing of the notions of formal logic, which must not be considered as eternal
and immutable, but were invented one day for the purpose of dealing with a certain
model of the world (Rota, 1974b).
104
Rota is convinced that our logic is patterned exclusively upon the structure
of physical objects (Rota, 1973a),
105
as set theory demonstrates, based on the re-
lations of containment and membership.
106
To clarify this thesis he uses one
of his favorite examples, namely, the marble in the box. To his mind, the afore-
mentioned relations of membership and containment represent nothing other
than the last sophisticated stage of a process that started out from this banal case,
which the phenomenological tradition denounces as crude and unft for describing
mathematics and human experience in general.
107
In this regard, Rota appeals to
Heideggers analysis of Being-in, where Heidegger criticizes the reduction of this
relationship to the Being-present-at hand of some corporeal Thing [...] in an
entity which is present-at-hand.
108
It is necessary to overcome a conception of
logic that reduces Being-in to the kind of Being which an entity has when it is
100
See Husserl (1913), p. 56.
101
See Rota (1986a), pp. 167173.
102
Republished as Three Senses of A is B in Heidegger, in Rota (1997a), pp. 188191.
103
Republished as The Phenomenology of Mathematical Truth, in Rota (1997a), pp. 108120.
104
See Rota (1986a), p. 180. See Palombi (2010), pp. 315316.
105
See Rota (1986a), p. 169.
106
See Rota (1986a), pp. 169171, 180, 249250, and (1997a), p. 189.
107
See Rota (1991a), pp. 218219.
108
Heidegger (1927), p. 79.
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in another one, as the water is in the glass, or the garment is in the cupboard,
109

or the marble is in the box. On this basis Rota criticizes the limits of set theory,
which interprets Being-in exclusively in terms of membership or of containment
(Rota, 1987a).
110
To overcome them one might begin by formalizing the ontologi-
cally primary relations of being, which were suppressed when these relations were
broached (Rota, 1973a).
111
Among these ontologically primary relations, one of
the most important is precisely the relation of Fundierung, which Husserls analysis
proved not to be reducible to containment or membership of sets (Rota, 1987a,
p. 34).
112
These considerations point to the second possible line of development
of the theory of Fundierung, namely, the beginning of a course capable of shedding
new light on the problem of the Nothing, particularly in its connection with that
which Heidegger describes as ontological difference.
113
Both lines are motivated by Rotas basic conviction that the relation of Fund-
ierung is the fundamental eidetic law of constitution
114
that allows us to grasp the
sense in words, and to confer a sense upon the world. We might say, then, that
every sense is the sense of a certain function that, out of eidetic necessity, is always
founded on factic moments. In Fundierung Rota believes it is possible to fnd the
worldly structure of sense.
109
Loc. cit.
110
See Rota (1997a), p. 189. See Palombi (2009b), pp. 108110.
111
See Rota (1986a), p. 171.
112
See Rota (1997a), p. 189.
113
See Rota (1987a) and (1991a), pp. 293322.
114
Gian-Carlo Rota, conversation with the author.
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A Phenomenological Perspective: The Crisis of European Sci-Ences (Husserl, 1959)

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CHAPTER TWO

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